


We still don't remember the colour of the flame we saw that day

by gamblers



Series: pink & grey [3]
Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Flash Fic, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 01:09:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11498613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamblers/pseuds/gamblers
Summary: In next week's episode, Shima runs a shitty airbnb out of Roppongi Hills.





	We still don't remember the colour of the flame we saw that day

  
  
  


Shima’s watch is too large and unfashionable, Suguro notices. The circumference of its face and the metal links in the strap are similarly ugly and they clash against the slender width of his wrist. The movement of the watch is obviously Swiss and its encasement is obviously not, which only means that Shima probably found it in a discount pile somewhere on his last espionage assignment in an unnamed Baltic country.

“I’ll take it off,” Shima murmurs under his breath, because he notices what Suguro notices. “I’ll be taking off my shirt too, if you don’t mind.”

“Why would I,” says Suguro.

“Because,” says Shima. And pauses there. _Because he hates you_ , a voice in the back of Suguro’s head presses un-pause. _Because he doesn’t know what you’re thinking half the time._

“Because…?”

“Yeah, never mind.” Shima unbuttons his shirt.

There is a certain incredulity to all of this clinical empathy that Shima is trying to pretend that he has, stripping down to his underwear and socks in the middle of the hotel room with neither flourish nor theatrical commentary. He’s not, at this point, even trying to seduce Suguro. He’s taking off his socks now. Suguro wonders momentarily if he is currently experiencing a lucid dream.

And it could really be something innocuous like that, if Shima isn’t pushing Suguro back down onto the bed right this moment, and kissing Suguro so coldly that it starts to burn his mouth.

Nobody should be taking the fall for Shima’s clinical empathy, but if there is anybody to blame for it perhaps it should be Suguro. He’s the one who had to declare war on Shima’s feelings, muck it up with neither flourish nor theatrical commentary, ultimately land the both of them in such a precarious daytime drama-esque situation that it had to keep even Kamiki’s skeptical eyes glued to the TV. Stupid, stupid Suguro. Couldn’t stay in his own lane, couldn’t walk himself far away enough from the True Cross Japan Headquarters, couldn’t keep his premonitions from circulating all the way back across the Pacific Ocean. A single phone call from Rin was all he’d needed, all he’d ever wished for, and when people like Suguro get their wishes they don’t tend to turn around and look the other way for where their rationality went.

It’s situational irony, maybe that’s all it is, that Shima had even discovered Suguro’s secret in the first place.

“Why were you waiting for me here?” Suguro asks first, his breath blurring against Shima’s neck when they break for air. “Hey, answer me.”

Shima barely smiles. “Did you really wanna know?” And pauses again.

And well—Suguro doesn’t. Not really. That’s the whole point.

“You can’t be in love with me forever,” he supplies instead, out of what he likely perceives to be the kindness of his own heart. “You’ll find somebody better to do shit like this with…one day.”

“Yeah?” says Shima. “Tell that to yourself.”

He leaves sometime after they fuck, before Suguro wakes & after taking a shower. When Suguro does, the first thing he sees is that Shima’s left something on the space next to his pillow.

“Hey, you forgot your stupid watch,” he says aloud anyway, to the wall.

So it’s like that, Shima had probably meant to leave it with Suguro, and Suguro’s probably meant to keep it forever.

  
  
  


Shima is knocking back his eleventh shot of soju. Another one and they’ll probably be reaching certain destruction of pub property, Rin knows that much, so he tries his best to calm Shima the fuck down with some kind of placating gesture that he’d picked up from Suguro a while ago. But Suguro’s the only one who had ever perfected the hidden jutsu of neutralizing an obnoxiously drunk Shima Renzou, and Rin hasn’t stuck around long enough under Suguro’s shitty tutelage to figure out how to achieve a similar level of technical expertise. Either way Suguro isn’t here presently, he's away on some long-term assignment in California (the lucky fucking bastard), and ever since Konekomaru became a permanent Myou Dha fixture, Rin is all Shima’s got by way of social interaction.

“C’mon Shima, let’s go pay our tab, I’ll buy you McDonald’s later, do you want that?”

“Fuck off, Okumura,” he gets in response. “I don’t want that shit. Fuck McDonald’s.”

“Well what the fuck do you want then,” Rin sighs, forcing the exasperation out of his voice.

“I want.” Shima’s head slumps, and now he is simply muttering into the woodwork of the bar surface. “I want…” The next word he says is a name. It’s so quiet that Rin almost doesn’t catch it, but he does anyway because thanks to dad he has ultrasonic satanic batlike fucking hearing.

“I’ll call him,” says Rin. Because Ryuuji always picks up.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> just wanted to write 800 words of 2D angst :')


End file.
